We’re all dupes. For decades now, we’ve been gorged on propaganda, slogans, demeaning slurs, lies, fairy tales, dog-whistles, blaming minorities, blaming anyone but the true culprits, titillating distractions, magical thinking, and scripted political kabuki theater, while being starved for honest news and information by the media that our Constitution vested with special rights and protections to produce the informed citizenry essential to a functioning, bottom-up democratic society. But in exchange for flunky access to the powerful, combined with corporate dominance, most journalists have been reduced to being craven stenographers for our political elites. To be well informed nowadays requires diligence and time most of us can’t afford.
This is as they intend it to be. The “People Who Matter” (as they refer to themselves) have no use for or intention to share even a sliver of our nation’s wealth with a prosperous middle class, and since Reagan’s election in 1980, they have engaged in a comprehensive campaign to re-feudalize our society and take back the gains Labor won in the early twentieth century with their blood, courage and lives.
The People Who Matter – the ‘first world’ of business and financial elites and their eager courtiers in politics and the media - have deliberately set us against one other by repeatedly spreading lies blaming assorted relatively powerless minorities for the damage they themselves are responsible for. Their name for us is the “Underlying Population”. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
Everyone knows how to tell if our politicians are lying - just check if their lips are moving. So how come when the election comes around, we forget this simple fact as they ply us with sweet, simple fables we would like to believe, while often without missing a beat telling a different set of fantasies and lies to another audience. After we elect these snake-oil salesmen, they throw their supporters a few crumbs here and there, while blaming their intentionally broken promises on anyone but themselves.
William Black, the chief regulator who oversaw the S&L scandal in the 1980’s, referring to those responsible for the 2008 crash stated matter-of-factly: “Bernie (Madoff) was a piker compared to these guys”. Here’s a typical example of just one of their many grand rackets: They conceive of the con (e.g.,’credit default swaps’ or ‘putting lipstick on the pig’ of subprime mortgages via ‘securitization’), then entice willing co-conspirators into the racket (like the whores at ratings agencies like Standard & Poors and Moodys), then hire ex-government ‘revolving-door’ lobbyists who pay off the ‘people’s representatives’ (their former colleagues), who then change the laws on bogus ‘smoke & mirrors’ pretexts so their patrons’ scams are now legal. And when the crooked bubble inevitably bursts the Underlying Population is left to clean up the mess, while the People Who Matters’ lickspittles in politics and the media wax philosophical on the canards of free markets, unregulated capitalism, and “no laws were broken”. Sound familiar? Lucy fools us again. And again and again. When will we learn? They’re never going to stop this behavior until rule of law is restored and those responsible are sentenced to many years in jail after forfeiting and returning their ill-gotten gains and then some.
Over the last decade, they’ve made enormous strides in cementing their gains at our expense: shredding our Constitutional rights; perpetual, profitable wars, “warfare by video game”, and the rise of the National Security State; massive layoffs and foreclosures; perpetual fear-mongering; so-called free trade agreements; multi-trillion dollar raids on the US Treasury then claiming we’re out of money; domestic drone surveillance; torture, unlimited detention, rendition, kangaroo courts; Citizens United; jail and death sentences without trial; arrest and harassment of dissenters; massive transfers of wealth from taxpayers to Wall Street, insurance, defense, pharmaceutical, security and energy companies; obsessive government secrecy; prosecution of whistleblowers who attempt to expose their waste, fraud & abuse; recklessly low bank reserves, evasion of the rule of law for the powerful, and so on. Many of us now put our personal and private information on social media and ‘smartphones’, blissfully unaware that one day it will be used against us. Total surveillance as well as the infrastructure for controlling the Underlying Population is nearly complete. Google: POSSE COMITATUS ACT OBAMA.
What can now be done with facial recognition, tracking our internet activity, emails, analytics, public surveillance cameras, satellites, smartphones, drones, EZ Pass, tailored messaging, GPS, supermarket discount cards, social media, RFID chips, and so much else is admittedly a boon for business, but it has a dark and frightening side. Its potential for abuse and control is already being implemented. Our nature as a species is that the strong will often prey upon the weak. The measure of our civilization is our will and ability to control and mitigate those instincts.
Our charismatic Nobel Peace Prize winning President, who long ago cast his lot with the People Who Matter and obviously not with the Underlying Population despite his soaring rhetoric, along with his Wall Street/PNAC /AIPAC/CFR-dominated Administration and Congress, now has us in nine publically-acknowledged war theaters: IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, LIBYA, YEMEN, SOMALIA, PALESTINE, SYRIA, BAHRAIN & IRAN, raining terror, death and destruction on defenseless Underlying Populations. We have over 1000 military installations in 130+ countries. The world is terrified of us. With our decades of despicable and ruthless imperial behavior, and countless crimes against humanity, we have deeply shamed ourselves and lost all claims to decency. It’s not surprising that we’ve irritated a few folks along the way.
To reclaim our former position in the world as a beacon for the highest aspirations of humankind, we’ll have to unite as a people and learn to work together. We must reject their lies that some hapless minority is our enemy. We must stop them from continuing to loot, poison and enslave us. We must reclaim the birthright of OUR media and government.
How wonderful it would be if we simply elected people who were decent, honest, straight-talking and interested in the common good. Only an informed and engaged citizenry can effectively demand such accountability.
No one who loves our country more than our military. They commit their lives and honor every day to building and defending America to be the strongest and most admired country in history. They do not aspire to the conquering, killing, occupying and destroying of other countries on which so much of their energy is expended, but our leaders who command them are the callous and traitorous lackeys of the People Who Matter.
The People Who Matter do not care what the Underlying Population think about their stealing our wealth and destroying our lives, hopes and dreams, and those of so many other peoples around the world.
Why do we tolerate all this for even one day longer?